


A Letter for Home

by darthneko



Series: What Matters Most [4]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Fix-It, Headcanon, M/M, Mpreg, Not Canon Compliant, So much headcanon, World of Warcraft: Legion Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: The letter was stained and crumpled, characters trailing in blurred lines across the parchment. Such an unassuming, tattered thing to carry the weight of the news within its ink.





	1. The Letter

**Author's Note:**

> The start of the epic Legion headcanon, which we've been batting around since the invasions started and I'm now writing out. It josses some major Legion plot points pretty much from the get go (like, y'know, having Anduin married with kids didn't already joss it...) I'd suggest reading at least Coming Home and Wolf Cub from this series before reading this one. Also, don't worry! This fic is already entirely written. I will try to post a chapter every few days as I get them edited and up to snuff.

  
[Link to full size image](https://gallery.digitalmidnight.org/wow/letter-chap1-fullsize.jpg) art by Darthneko 

He remembers the shape of his cousin's name first.

He touches the brush caught between his claws to the smooth cream of the parchment, shaking so badly as he traces out the familiar shape that the lines warp and break, no longer looking like a name at all. Breathing deep, he tries again, steadying himself with the claws of his free hand sunk into the polished wood of the table.

He blinks, and there is nothing but Ren's name cascading down the page, a wavering column that trails onto his makeshift desk. He scrubs the ink from the wood with his fingers, staining the fur black.

The brush moves back to the top of the page almost of its own accord. _Varian_ , he thinks, but he can't bear forming the cramped characters of the man's name in Common, and it's the clean, broad strokes of _emperor_ that appear on the parchment.

His chest feels tight. Ink splatters around the next word, smears it, but not enough to conceal what it says.

_Failed._

The failure beats inside him like an open wound in his heart, the things he should have done, the things he shouldn't have done. The brush clatters to the table as he squeezes his fist shut, feeling claws dig into the wrist of the person beside him.

He had words, then. He remembers shouting orders as he dragged the draenei priest he'd grabbed toward the rail of the airship, but even in his own memory the words are nothing more than meaningless sound. 

_Too slow._

Too slow, their fall cushioned by his own chi, the small group that followed him wrapped in a mage's magic. Too slow, too far away, too entangled in their own demons to be of any help at all. Too far to do anything but watch Varian go to his knees, to watch Gul'dan…

He doesn't remember what he screamed, only that he refused to see his friend's soul lost, corrupted in this place of demons. He only remembers the man he grabbed - priest, draenei, clad in the elaborate robes of those who had chosen to cross the portal from the alternate Draenor - reaching out as Gul'dan's group returned from whence they'd come, bands of Light coiling through the fel haze and catching _something_ from the air.

_Spiritbinder._

He remembers that word, remembers the realization echoing through his skull. Remembers shouting more orders. Remembers the lesser demons losing power and falling back as their superiors abandoned them, the small band of fighters on the shore dismissed as irrelevant.

He remembers the shattered, scattered remains he refused to leave behind, blood and fel soaking into his fur. He remembers lending his chi to the mage, helping to guide the portal to a place of safety and familiarity, the relief when the weight of sea air was replaced by the crispness of mountain snow. He remembers the spiritbinder's hand on his shoulder, the quiet, _What would you have me do, friend? I cannot hold him forever._

The monks stare at him in horror when he spills his grisly burden into the snow. They argue that no mistweaver can weave a body together again. He is sure he argued, but in his memory he only snarls at them until they agree to try.

He follows them. Of course he follows them, unwilling to trust promises. The scent of herbs is quickly overwhelmed by the scents of battle, blood and fel and chi.

He lurches upright from the table. At some point, he picked up the fallen brush; words stagger down the parchment and blur in front of his eyes. He blinks and drops the brush again, stumbling toward the door.

The air in the small adjoining room is still thick with chi and blood, but the taint of fel has faded slightly. Healers cluster in the center, ever-moving, ever shifting, one faltering to be replaced by another. The spiritbinder dozes on a nearby cot, invisible bonds tethering him to the object of attention. He knows the draenei, stubborn and unfaltering in this task he has taken on, will wake if his charge tries to escape.

The mistweavers shift at his approach, just enough to let him see the too-small form on the bed. It is still more mist than flesh, he thinks, and what flesh there is has been shifted and reshaped, once-powerful limbs drawn and attenuated to reforge the bare outline of the ruined torso. But it is enough, enough of an anchor to let the spiritbinder sleep, enough success that the mistweavers have stopped fighting him and instead called in assistance from other schools of healing, priests and druids and even a warlock, to assist with the fel energy that still poisons the remaining flesh and bone.

For now, it is enough.

The healers try to speak to him, meaningless sounds tumbling through the air. One of them takes his arm, claws catching in his fur as they guide him away; he sags and makes his way back to his own side of the door.

His hand is steadier when he again reaches for the brush. The letter, when he looks over it, is somehow both choppy and rambling; he should re-write it, but he is not sure he could find the shapes of the words again.

_I am uninjured_ , he writes, and it's true enough; his body is whole, only his heart and head are broken. He breathes deep, for a moment lost in himself, his gaze on the door.

He cannot keep the next words steady, a drunken jumble of characters. _The healers strive to restore the Emperor._

He stares at those words for long moments, watching the ink dry, and wills them to still be true when the message reaches his cousin.

* * * * *

"Lorewalker Stoneclaw?"

The words, in his native tongue, took an entirely too long moment to penetrate Ren's mind. Wrapped up in tallies - wounded, supplies, armaments, funds, everything boiled down to numbers and equations of how quickly one set of numbers can be transferred from location A to location B - he had only half an ear cocked to those around him and that ear was set to hear what he had been hearing for days. Choppy human voices, the staccato sounds of Common syllables, prefaced with rushed renditions of "your highness" or "my lord" or some other honorific which was meant to get his attention for the next impossible puzzle someone wanted to shove into his lap. 

He had already half turned, hand outstretched for the next parchment or scroll or tally tablet, when he realized that it was his _name_ he had just heard, proper name, proper title, in the liquid sounds of Pandaren. And not just any Pandaren, but the distinct tones of a Mandori village accent, as familiar to him as his own Dai-Lo drawl. Ren twisted, turning fully away from the table he had claimed as an erstwhile desk, and blinked in confusion at Aysa Cloudsinger.

The dark furred female bowed to him, as serenely calm as she had ever been when she had been a senior student to his junior in Master Shang's training yard. She wasn't a russet fur to betray herself in every twitch of her tail, but there was a stiffness to her ears that set Ren's hackles on edge, the fur at his nape prickling. 

Habit from their shared student days made him half rise, bowing back as well as he could around the sleeping cubs that were strapped in slings against his chest and sides. "Master Cloudsinger," he said, and it said much about his last handful of days that his own language felt awkward in his mouth. "What can I do for you?" Even as he said it he felt his stomach drop, the prickling turning into a full fledged shudder for the only thing he could think of that would have brought Aysa herself into the castle looking for the erstwhile Royal Consort. "Is there news from Pandaria?"

"Nothing official," Aysa said quietly. It had been years since Ren had been under her tutelage but her tone, smooth and serene, still steadied him even as it held a hint of what felt like chiding rebuke. He could easily enough guess why - it shouldn't have taken days and a visit from Stormwind's primary Pandaren emissary to make him ask that question, not when a brand new map of Azeroth was spread on the desk behind him, key points marked by ink pots and clipped copper coins and a few of the grapes that were left from breakfast. None of it touched the sketched in shores of Pandaria, however, and he, of all of the castle occupants, should have made it his job to correct that before now. 

Ren started to wince but Aysa was holding out a scroll, the parchment a bit worse for wear but neatly rolled all the same. "It came through just now," she told him. "From Kun-Lai, addressed to you. I brought it at once."

He took the scroll automatically but when he turned it over between his claws it was strangely bare of marking. Ren frowned; he had expected to find the impression of the Shado-Pan in a seal of melted wax, or of the Lorewalkers. The scroll was entirely unsealed, secured only with a bit of string and an inked stamp from the Grummle carriers that marked it as having been collected from the Peak of Serenity, the address tag directing it to him - his full name, no title, Stormwind tacked on like an afterthought - written in an unfamiliar, cramped hand. 

Aysa spread her hands when he glanced at her, indicating her own ignorance. "I thought it might come from one of the Masters," she admitted. Not official, no, Ren realized, but potentially important. Grimacing, he plucked the tie free and unrolled the parchment. 

His name was the first thing that caught his eye, impossible to miss, a cascade of the characters of his name repeating in an unsteady hand all the way down the page. Unsteady or no, he knew that hand, knew the shape of the characters and how they were formed, and felt all the breath leave his lungs in a pained rush. There was a ringing in his ears, like the muted rumble of a distant avalanche, and dimly he heard Aysa call his name, felt her claws catch at his wrist and shoulder, pressing him back to the seat behind him. 

Ren blinked. The parchment was still clutched between his hands, more wrinkled now than it had been before. Against his chest one of the cubs, Lothar, wriggled, making soft waking sounds. Ren touched the boy's ears with one hand, soothing him automatically, and shakily smoothed the scroll out across the table top, the impossible string of his name characters staring back at him.

"Lorewalker?" Aysa said, urgently, and she must, he realized belatedly, have said it several times, because her next attempt was his given name, uttered in the sharp tones that had pulled him up short when he had studied with her. "Ren! What is it? What's wrong?"

His lungs were too tight, seized up still in his chest, and forcing himself to take a breath hurt. Ren drew in one pained breath, then another, pressing trembling fingers to the smeared ink on the page that blurred before his eyes. "My cousin," he managed, his voice sounding wrong in his own ears. "Ying Xian, he... the Shore..."

Aysa hissed softly, a reflexive pained sound, her hands tightening on Ren's shoulders. Only five days since disaster had struck, and the Broken Shore's death count was still added to daily as the Alliance continued to take stock of what, and who, was missing. There wasn't a business or residence within Stormwind that wasn't draped in black, the whole of the Alliance reeling from their losses and sunk into mourning even as they scrambled, desperately, to continue answering the call to war. 

One more life, one more confirmation more or less, should not mean so much. Ren knew it, but his heart was in his throat, his eyes wet and the page swimming in a blur before him. His own name, in a familiar hand, and it was more than he had ever hoped for, even if it was all that could be written. There were other characters, though, smudged words and smeared lines that trailed drunkenly across the page, and it was as he was smoothing the parchment out that the characters of "uninjured" leapt out at him, inked at the bottom of the sheet. 

_I am uninjured._

The sound Ren made had no words to it, shocked and pained all at once. He couldn't breathe for long moments, his chest tight and choking. The touch of chi, pressed warm between his shoulder blades, loosened his lungs enough to let him draw in a gasp, the air wheezing through his throat. Aysa, he realized, one hand caught on his shoulder to steady him, the other pressed firm against his back, her chi sinking into his flesh and fur to bolster the tangled morass of his own. 

Alive. He dared to shape the words with his mouth but not breath sound into it, his hands shaking as he smoothed and resmoothed the parchment over the impossible words. The scroll was unsigned, the words just stopping at the end, but he _knew_ the hand that had made them, had known it all his life from when they had first sat in lessons together as small cubs. His cousin, his only true family once they had quit the turtle, and Ren had mourned when he could, the loss hitting him anew in snatched moments between the whirlwinds of crisis and chaos. Little things, reflexive things, when he would think that he should tell his cousin something, or that Hardwire would want to see, and then the loss would rise up and strangle him once more, empty and aching in his heart. 

And now this, written in his cousin's own hand, _I am uninjured,_ and Ren didn't know whether to laugh or cry, the feeling too large and tremulous for either. 

"But this is good news, isn't it?" Aysa asked gently, and Ren wasn't sure if he had gasped anything out loud or if she had read over his shoulder the words that he was almost petting on the page. Ren managed to nod; the shaking hand he rubbed across his eyes came away wet.

It wasn't until he had pressed the scroll flat once more, his gaze focusing on more than just his own name and that one treasured line, that some of the rest of the message formed in his faltering thoughts. When it did he sucked in another breath, straightening so sharply that Lothar protested again with a small whine and Aysa reached to catch him from tipping back too far on his seat. 

Ren pressed her hand in wordless thanks, the scroll curling into his palm when he scooped it up, parchment fragile and crinkling beneath his claws. "Thank you," he managed, his voice rough. "I need... Anduin..."

Aysa nodded in understanding, only squeezed his shoulder once as Ren pushed unsteadily to his feet, something he couldn't even name fluttering wildly in his straining lungs.

* * * * *

He found Anduin in the war room, a space dominated by the central table with a vast map spread across it. Heavy iron shaped markers for troops and ships were positioned like children's toys on a drawn landscape that the King and his generals spent long hours of each day studying and repositioning as reports flowed in with ever increasing numbers. More metal bases that could hold temporary markers were positioned in the same spread his map upstairs had held; someone, in a fit of desperation or sour humor, had broken shards of a heavy green tinted bottle and pressed them into service as markers. Bits of a Barleybrew label still clung to some of them.

One of the noble advisors, a man whose name Ren couldn't be bothered to remember, hid a grimace in a poor show of turning away when Ren entered. He ignored the man, brushing past him, and the armored generals gave way easily enough, used to his coming and goings with stacks of figures to be added to their efforts.

Anduin had pulled a bench up to the side of the table for the simple reason that his daughter, Varia, was perched on it, tucked into her father's shadow, her solemn eyes dark and shadowed as she watched the adults around her. She had said barely a word the whole week, ever since they had sat the cubs down between them to explain events to them, and had refused to let her father out of her sight since his coronation. 

As immoveable as his father in his own way, Anduin had solved this by simply keeping the older cubs with him. Ling Tian and Den were just visible beneath the bench, curled up in a tangle of limbs while they napped, as quiet and desperate for closeness as their elder sister. Li Hua was nestled in Varia's lap, the older child holding her infant sister tight and carefully, and Ren knew from experience that the only way to extract the cub was either when Li Hua woke hungry and began crying or to bargain Varia into swapping for one of the boys instead. 

Anduin himself was developing the hollowed but bright eyed look of a man who had not had nearly enough sleep and far too many stimulants. They had not slept in the same bed since the first night after the failed assault on the Broken Shore simply because neither Ren nor Anduin were keeping anything like regular hours of sleep. Ren would stumble in late to an empty bed and wake to the same, or to mussed covers where Anduin must have laid down for a brief time but the man himself would already be up once more. On the rare occasions Ren caught him asleep it was almost painful; in sleep, without the firm face that he presented to the public, Anduin looked entirely too young and too bruised to bear the weight that was being demanding of him. Ren had found himself smoothing the covers over his mate and tip toeing away to find something - anything - else he could do to help ease Anduin's burdens.

In mid-afternoon there was a heavy mug and brewing pot - kaffe or tea, it was always either the bitter grummle grown brew or the smoky blackest teas from Townlong Steppes - at Anduin's left hand and a half empty ink pot and stack of reports at his right that he was flipping through, pausing here or there to pen a note or circle a pertinent figure before passing the sheets on to those around him. His tied back hair was escaping into his eyes and he had unfastened his jacket but kept it loosely draped over his shoulders - not, Ren knew, for warmth in the almost stuffy air of the room, but for the multiple blades and more than one magically attuned focus wand hidden within the heavy coat's layers. None of them, from the alert guards around the edges of the room to the armed and armored officers and the king himself, were taking any further chances.

"The Illidari," General Whitehall was saying as Ren approached, the man's mouth thinning around the word in distaste, "are requesting permission to run surveillance on all incoming reinforcements to prevent Legion infiltration..."

"Denied," Anduin replied firmly, barely glancing up from the report he was frowning at. "Their camp is there for support of their own offensive, not to play judge and jury. We need every reinforcement we can get, including the Kalimdor mercenaries, and we can't afford to alienate or slow them by having the Illidari questioning everyone. They may," he added with a sigh "run a spot check of our camps once a day. They are to report any suspected demon activity near the camps to the camp commanders and proceed under orders from there, not take it upon themselves."

"My liege," Whitehall confirmed, pleased, and reached for a blank sheet of parchment from one of the stacks on the table to write out the orders that would be forwarded to the entrenched siege camps. 

"Send word to the Council that the next supply shipment to Dun Morogh will be ready tomorrow," Anduin continued, one of the advisor's younger sons who was acting as scribe for the hour hastily jotting the note on the smaller sheets that were being circulated for messengers. "They'll need to have a portal anchor prepared at midday. If they have anything from the forges to send back we'll need to know ahead of time - the mages want the portals kept to a tight schedule." He signed off on something sharply, pen scratching in hard strokes, then passed it to another scribe. "Have a runner take that to the Archbishop. I need a census of how many healing trained priests the Cathedral can currently muster. Yes, love?"

The last was to Varia, who had reached out to tug at her father's coat tail. She pointed to Ren; Anduin straightened from the table and the minute softening of the lines of his eyes and mouth were for Ren alone, a brief grateful warming before the mask of the King firmed back into place. "You have the accounts?" he asked without preamble, stepping forward, but his hands reached not for papers but to gently cup Lothar's small head where the cub was blinking in the sling against Ren's chest while Tir and Lan both nestled against his hips. 

"Not yet," Ren told him quietly and took a deep breath, trying to ease the ache in his chest as he held up the crumpled scroll. "This just came in, from Pandaria. Master Cloudsinger brought it." 

He regretted it before the words finished leaving his mouth; alarm, the same that had lanced through him at Aysa's first appearance, widened Anduin's eyes. Ren hastily shook his head, reaching to catch his mate's sleeve. "It's not..." he grimaced, aware of the multitude of eyes on them. "Private, please?" he asked quickly, voice low, the Pandaren words spoken slow enough for Anduin to catch them.

Anduin blinked, a worried frown taking the place of the initial alarm, then nodded, turning away. "Anderson," he called to one of the other generals, indicating the Crown Princess with a nod of his head; the man immediately stepped forward to stand near the bench where the cubs were clustered, at alert with hand on his sword. Anduin bent briefly to press a kiss to Varia's tumbled golden curls. "Your papa and I are just going to be in the next room," Ren heard him tell her quietly. "You'll watch Li Hua and the boys, won't you?" 

Varia was frowning, her little mouth pulled down in a very Wrynn expression of displeasure that was the spitting image of her grandfather's infamous scowl in adorable miniature, but she nodded and didn't try to hold on when Anduin stepped back. Anduin beckoned and Ren stepped in to follow him, reaching to press one hand briefly into his mate's back as Anduin lead the way to a small offshoot guard room, little more than an alcove recessed past a low arch that Ren had to duck his head to enter. It lacked a door and Ren, despite the itch all down his spine, planted himself firmly just past the doorway with his back to the outer room, effectively blocking the entrance.

"What is it?" Anduin asked softly. Away from other eyes his alarm was more apparent, voice tight and expression taut, and his hands, on Ren's arms, held with a hard grip. "Is something wrong? Is it from Lord Zhu?"

"No," Ren assured him hastily. "No, no invasion, nothing official." He drew in another breath, feeling it catch in his throat, his eyes burning, and his voice was not as steady as he wanted. "It's from Hardwire."

It took less than a heartbeat for the words to sink in, Anduin's eyes going wide enough to ring them in white as the man inhaled a sharp, surprised breath, his fingers tightening hard to dig in against Ren's forearms. He recovered faster than Ren had, swallowing surprise and shock beneath the bright burn of focus that had seen him through the last days.f "Light bless - _where?"_

Ren handed over the parchment, and it wasn't until Anduin covered Ren's hand with his own, gripping tight, that he realized how badly his hands were shaking. "Kun-Lai," he said breathlessly. "The temple at Serenity."

"Portal," Anduin breathed in understanding. He took the scroll but stepped in instead of away and Ren found himself embraced, Anduin slipping in against his side with care for the cubs in their slings, his arms solid and warm. For a long moment all Ren could do was lean into his grasp, gasping in breath that was thick with cubs and mate and the reassurance of the family he had made for himself as the enormity of it hit him once more. "Mercy," Anduin said roughly, voice catching and his breath warm against Ren's throat. "There must have been a mage on the beach. Ren..."

It was warm and real and Ren held on for another handful of heartbeats before drawing back with a deeper breath. His cousin, alive, had rocked him to his core, and Anduin's sympathy for a Pandaren he knew only as one of his father's more disreputable companions but had embraced wholeheartedly as extended family through Ren was just one more reason Ren knew he was hopelessly attached to the father of his cubs. "There's more," he managed, voice thick. He took the scroll back, spreading it open, and held it for his mate to read.

Anduin frowned, one finger lightly touching each character of the scroll. He had learned a passable amount of the written language - most of it from Ren's hand - years before, but his practice had been inconsistent since. Ren started to point out the whole sentence portions of the scroll to translate, but Anduin tapped his fingertip against the first one, then tracked down the scroll quickly to find it again. "'Emperor'? Does it mean... Shaohao? 'Restore'..." he sucked in a sharper breath, mouth forming a wordless shocked sound for a brief moment. "By the Light," he whispered, voice rough, "are they trying to restore the Mist? To shield Pandaria from the Legion?"

A compassionate heart and quick mind, and Ren loved him for both, enough that he almost wanted to be able to say 'yes' instead of potentially causing harm. He shook his head in a short, sharp negative, swallowing, his own hands going to the warm, familiar weight of his cubs for strength. "I doubt it," he said softly. "Hardwire spent little time in Pandaria except in the Valley and along the coast. Never with the Lorewalkers or others who would have called on Emperor Shaohao." He tried to smile, the expression twisting into more of a grimace. "I doubt he knew..." his voice caught, breaking, and he made himself go on, "knows the last emperor as more than a distant tale he's heard the telling of once or twice."

His mate was frowning, puzzled, but his hand on Ren's arm was soothing, stroking over Ren's fur where he had rolled his sleeves back with a reassuring touch. "But it says 'Emperor', doesn't it? I'm reading that right? What..."

Ren wrapped his hand around Anduin's arm in a light touch. "Emperor," he said as gently as he could, "is the closest word we have to King."

It took less than two heartbeats for his words to sink in; his hand on Anduin's arm gave Ren something to grasp when he felt his mate stumble, all the breath leaving Anduin's lungs at once. The color drained from his face, leaving the blue of his eyes ringed in nothing but white, shocked and glassy. Ren hastily shifted the cub slings across his shoulders so that he could draw the man in against his side, one hand holding Anduin upright, the other cupped against the back of his neck. "I'm sorry," Ren whispered urgently, grimacing, the words too pale and weak in his own ears. "I'm sorry, Anduin, I don't know what else he could mean..."

Anduin hands gripped desperately against fur and sleeve alike, as though those points alone were holding him upright. He shook his head mutely, the motion jerking in short spasms of denial, his breath broken and ragged. "No," he rasped, voice harsh. Ren could feel the tremors going through him, spasms of shudders that vibrated through the body pressed to his own. Anduin's expression crumpled in a slow sequence, denial and pain and anger and back to a desperate, stunned denial. "No, it's not possible. There... there was nothing left. Greymane... all of the accounts, the last ship, they all saw... There was _nothing left..."_

Nothing left, an explosion of light and fel energies, so large and brilliant that it had rocked the last of the fleeing air ships as she turned rudder and fled. So large that nothing could have survived - nothing to retrieve, nothing left, and an empty casket laid to rest beneath Varian Wrynn's tomb, symbolic and nothing more. No solace for the grief of those left behind, no closure, and Ren held Anduin closer, feeling the ache of sympathy all through his own heart. "What if there was?" he asked gently, hating himself a little for the silent, furious tears that tracked down his mate's cheeks. "Anduin, please - I'm not a mistweaver, not a priest, I don't _know,_ but if there was anything left, anything they could reach in time..."

Anduin's moan was so low it was almost a whisper, rattling through his chest in a hollow, pained sound that was more animal than human. "Too long," he hissed, his fingers digging fur from Ren's arm in their desperate grip. "Too many days, if they haven't... if there isn't..." he broke off, choking, convulsively shaking his head again. "They can't... It's not... oh _Light."_ Plea or prayer, the word was half lost in a sob. Ren, his ears flat, wrapped his arms around Anduin and held on, using his own body to shield them from any eyes on the alcove. 

There had been little enough time for grief since the news had first come, little time for Ren to snatch for himself and even less for the young human thrust onto the throne. Anduin had risen to it, but the toll was there to Ren's eyes, in the brittle way he pulled himself back together, the kingship both burden and a heavy shield he could draw himself behind, put on like a mask. The storm was brief - too brief, swallowed down and shoved away in bare minutes, only enough time for Anduin to gasp and force the shudders down. Ren could only guess at the emotions vibrating beneath his skin, grief and fear and anger in a toxic mix that pulled Anduin's mouth into a thin line when he gathered himself and stepped back, eyes too bright and still wet, but expression otherwise firm. 

"You're going to Serenity." It wasn't a question and Ren could only nod. Anduin drew in a deliberate breath, absently wiping his cheeks and eyes. "I know the peak is shielded," he said, frowning a little. "Can you take-"

"I'll need to leave the cubs here," Ren said with a grimace, ears still pulling flat against his skull. "It will only be for the evening," he added hastily, touching the three slings and their warm, sleepy bundles that hung around him. "They're too young to take to the peak."

Anduin blinked and Ren realized that hadn't actually been the question, but his mate rallied quickly, nodding and reaching for the sling Lothar was in. Ren handed it to him reflexively and Anduin slipped the strap over his own shoulder, adjusting the knot to cradle their son close against his own chest. "Of course." His expression softened some when he looked at the cub, gently touching small ears. "Take the time you need, we'll manage here." 

When he glanced back up the mask slipped slightly, his mouth twisting. "What I was going to ask was if the Masters allow outsider devices. If you can take one of the recorders..." Anduin took a breath, jaw firm, and swallowing hard. "Whatever they're doing, I _need_ to know."

"I'm sure I can, yes," Ren said hastily. "The Temple is closed to those not of the order, but no limit has ever been placed on what is brought in."

Anduin nodded, reaching up to press a hand to Ren's cheek. "Find out," he said simply. His smile was more of a pained grimace, an attempt he abandoned quickly. "Find Hardwire. If he was on the beach at the end, I want to know what happened."

_No matter how bad the news._ It hung unspoken between them, the loss and bleeding, ragged ends that knew no closure. Ren covered Anduin's hand with his own, twisting to press a kiss into the palm. "I will," he promised. 

His mate's fingers caught in the braid along his cheek, pulling him down for a brief kiss, and then Anduin was reaching for the slings containing Tirion and Landan, cradling them in his arms as he pushed past Ren and back into the main room. "Tell Mistress Anneli that she's needed," he told one of the messengers, sending the boy out to go find the nurse that occasionally helped care for the cubs when Ren's hands were too full. 

A moment of deft juggling - a far cry from the awkward flail it had been when the youngest set of cubs had first been born - saw Landan's sling settled against his side. Tirion was lifted to drape in a limp, sleeping bundle against his father's shoulder and then Anduin strode back to the table, already reaching for the next report, the mask of the King firmly in place despite the cluster of his children all around him. Ren watched him for a moment, his own emotions too much of a jumble inside his shaken nerves to make sense of, then straightened, feeling the strangeness of a body unencumbered by cubs. Drawing in a breath, he gave himself a quick shake and slipped out. He could requisition one of the gnomish recorders from SI:7, and it would give him time to dig out gear he hadn't used or needed since he had come to Stormwind.


	2. Chapter 2

  
[Link to full size image](https://gallery.digitalmidnight.org/wow/letter-chap2-fullsize.jpg) art by Darthneko

  


The cold, crisp air of the peaks of Kun-Lai felt harsh in Ren's nose after the damp coastal breezes of Stormwind. It made the tissues of his nose ache, too dry and thin and strangely scentless - it was only belatedly that he realized the lack was in the scent of humans, the unique blend of human and horse and canal that he had hated at first and now found himself oddly bereft. 

The temple on the Peak of Serenity was unchanged since Ren had first visited it nearly a double handful of years before; in the training yards clusters of students still suffered under the less than gentle tutelage of their masters, and if those students and masters now boasted most of the races of Azeroth instead of just Pandaren the atmosphere and discipline remained the same. There were no factions, here, no Horde or Alliance, only the way of the Ox, Tiger, Crane or Dragon, sibling schools of discipline that wove together into a whole dedicated to passing on the legacy of the first Pandaren monks. 

It was Ren himself who had changed. Never a consistent or devoted student, he had nevertheless felt the call of the Tiger at one point, delighting in strength and challenge. Now... his armor was too large for him, much too large, his traveling clothes tucked and pinned and layered to make up the difference as much as he could. His staff felt awkward in his hands, the missing weight of the cubs pulling at him when he least expected it, and he knew his gait still had a bit of the awkward, post-birth sway, his center of balance shifted maybe for good. 

It made his fur prickle across his neck and scalp, ears wanting to draw down and shoulders hunch defensively. Ren made himself stand upright, ignoring how his claws dug into the wood of his staff. He was, he told himself fiercely, no lapsed student returning to his masters' disapproval. Whether the temple masters disapproved or not was completely inconsequential - he was a Lorewalker now, and if not a Lorewalker then by all the ancestors he was the Royal Consort of the King of Stormwind and he would present himself as such, not as a cringing cub who feared their teacher's punishment.

That resolve carried him past the curious eyes of the courtyards and up the snow dusted steps that lead to the main temple hall. The monks at the great doors let him in without question, the hall open to all who followed the Way so far as to know how to reach the temple at all. Inside, he drew in a deep breath scented with warm tallow and fireplace smoke that permeated the very stones, shaking the chill and bits of snow from his cloak before going to find the masters.

Master Hight, the senior most master of the temple, was a solid wall of Pandaren, tall and broad, his sable fur thick and glossy from the chill mountain air. He bowed when Ren did, the shallow inclination of a master to a student; the other eyes in the great hall might be curious or disapproving of this near unknown in their midst, but Master Hight only looked Ren over, taking in the awkward fit of his chestpiece with a knowing eye and a flick of one ear. "Your cubs are well, traveler?"

Ren's breath caught a little in his throat. It was so simple, but that immediate acknowledgement had been long missing among the humans and it eased a knot in him, melting some of the disapproval he could have sworn he felt into something that seemed more like polite concern. "Yes, thank you, Grandmaster," he replied. "They are home, but urgent news required my presence here."

Hight tipped his head slightly, and to his side Master Cheng frowned, gaze sharpening on Ren. "What news?"

It would be then or never. Ren drew in a full breath and straightened, pressing his fist into his open palm in silent respect. "My name is Ren Stoneclaw," he said clearly, voice steady, "and I come on behalf of my mate, Emperor Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind."

In retrospect, he might have tossed an angry hornet's nest at the assembled masters' feet and it would have had the same result. It snapped them all to attention, like tigers on the hunt, ears flicking back or up in varying degrees of shock all around. Hight forestalled any commotion with one sharply barked "Enough!" and when he turned back to Ren his bow was much deeper as he gestured for Ren to accompany him. 

Outside the main hall, away from other eyes, Hight hooked his claws lightly into the cuff of Ren's sleeve and tugged him out a side door, into the brisk air and a swept clear path that lead to one of the outlying buildings of the temple grounds. "You are the Emperor's consort?" he asked quietly, his voice mild.

Ren held his jaw tight, funneling the tension the question flared through him into the grit of his teeth instead of any visible flinch. Not official, and he knew it, but if it was proper enough for the guards in Stormwind then it was proper enough for the temple. "Yes." It sounded flat even to his own ears and he forced himself to breath through it until he didn't have to feign the quiet pride in his next words. "We have seven cubs."

Hight's dark ears flicked flat back against his head, eyes going involuntarily round in astonishment, and Ren almost choked on a short laugh. "Three births," he assured the other Pandaren. "Two of them mine."

"Small wonder you didn't continue your training," Hight snorted, then shook his head when Ren's ears went back in turn. "I remember, yes. You had promise in the path of the Tiger." To Ren's surprise there was no disappointment or judgement in the master's even tone, and Hight frowned a little at the continued set of Ren's ears. "We choose when to fight," he said quietly. "There is no shame in choosing a different path, and your commitment to your cubs does you honor."

They had reached a set of shallow steps that lead to one of the dormitory buildings. The Grandmaster paused there, turning to Ren with a sigh that plumed the warmth of his breath into the thin air. "The new Emperor is well?" he asked gravely.

"He is as well as one could expect for someone new come to his position in a time of war," Ren said, and if the words were sharper than he meant them to be Hight didn't seem to take offense. "We received a message, from my cousin. Ying Xian," he added when the other Pandaren cocked his head slightly, and, when that didn't seem to trigger recognition, "he goes by Hardwire with the outsiders. He would have come with those seeking refuge from the Broken Shore."

"Ah," Hight breathed, nodding. "The Emperor's Guard." He cast a sidelong glance at Ren. "I do not think any of the masters realized you were related, or we would have trained you together." He reached out again, and his hand on Ren's wrist was firmer, a touch meant to both steady and command stillness. "Your cousin... I have never seen a will so firm embodied in one heart before, though I think he used much of it to achieve what should have been impossible." He shook his head slightly, ears solemnly low. "I will show you, but you _must_ contain yourself. The work the mistweavers do is difficult, the whole precarious at best. You understand?"

Ren could only nod, feeling his heart catch in his chest, the resumed beat drumming faster beneath his breastbone. He had no idea what to expect when Hight turned to lead him into the building but he had seen more than enough battlefields, and mortal wounds on the same. He tried to brace himself for some variation of that, the smell of blood and pain, wounds and burns and ruined flesh.

It was so much worse than that.

He remembered the hour that followed in bits and snatches. The bitter scent of fel, mixed with the coppery tang of blood and the warm green steam of brewed herbs. A Draenei, with the thick accent and wrapped in the robes of the Draenor that was and wasn't, eyes ringed dark in sleeplessness against skin that had gone chalky blue in exhaustion. Mistweavers, no less than six sets of hands in endless motion, the push and pull of chi through the room's thick air so heavy he could taste it. 

A bed, sheets stained in blood and things Ren couldn't identify, and a body that... wasn't. Thin, translucent skin wrapped over the visible pulse of blood in a tracery of veins, pumped by a heart he could see whose rhythm was kept by a mistweaver in constant attendance while another pushed air in and out of vestigial lungs. Flesh without bones, a body without shape, thin and attenuated and whole portions missing. 

At some point Ren had fumbled the recorder out, his hands going numbly through the motions of activating it. A deep russet female with one white ear had approached him before he had taken two steps into the room, shoving him bodily back against the wall where he wouldn't disturb the healers at their work, and had tried, after Hight's short nod, to explain their work in stumbling, vague terms. Ren had shaken his head, gripping her arm. "The Emperor's son is a priest," he told her, his own voice dim in his ears. "He follows the Light as a healer."

Her ears had come up at that and Ren had blessed the sometimes precarious inventions of the Gnomes because what spilled out of her mouth was incomprehensible to him - things about energy flow and regulation, mass distribution, essential systems needed for the spiritbinder to anchor to, and hundreds of details he would never have been able to remember. The recorder in his hands captured it all faithfully, along with snapshots of the endless motion, weaving hands, and the impossible beat of a heart that should not exist, created from wholecloth by naught but will and prayer. 

When Hight finally drew him from the room Ren found he was shaking, his hands thick and clumsy as he stowed the recorder away once more. "Alive," he managed, his voice catching in his throat, and he didn't know what he was feeling - relief, disbelief, awe, shock. "Varian. He's... alive."

The senior healer, who had followed them out, shook her head, her ears and mouth grim. "Partially alive," she corrected, "and I can not speak for who or what, if there even is anything." She shook her head sharply, pushing stray clumps of hair that had escaped her braid back. "The spiritbinder says, but _I_ can not say. There is a spark of life, and we will fan it, but what resides in that life, mind or soul, I do not know."

Ren rubbed a hand over his mouth, feeling ill. She had said as much before, he recalled, somewhere on what the recorder had taken in, blunt and direct to her profession without sweet coating any of it. He didn't want to bring that report to Anduin, didn't want his mate to see what remained of his father's body, but he couldn't not - Anduin, of all people, deserved to know. _Needed_ to know, and had, Ren thought with a pang of pain, already known the risk - _nothing left_ , he had cried, and Ren thought he understood, now, why that was the better hope to wish for. 

"If there is anything you need..." he started, prepared to offer every resource the Alliance had at hand and knowing that in this he could absolutely command with impunity. 

"We have asked the Shado-Pan for the assistance of their priests," Hight told him. "Though, if you could... there is the matter of your cousin."

That brought Ren's head up, his stomach doing another sharp drop. If anyone should have been there, near to the fallen king, it was his cousin, and he had not seen or even heard Hardwire anywhere. The healer snorted softly, taking his wrist, and lead him to the next door along the hall, opening it to another room identical to the first - a bed, a hearth, a table, but without the tight press of bodies within it. 

"You are his kin?" she said sharply. "Make him eat. Make him rest. He is whole in body but he will not stay that way if he doesn't care for himself."

The shutters over the window were drawn, the hearth banked, the whole of the room dim and warm. Ren had to blink for several moments to make his eyes focus on the shadows and when he did he felt his breath leave him. 

His cousin sat on the bed, feet drawn up, body slumped down into himself. Someone had found him a change of clothes, a set of initiate tunic and pants, the well worn material only slightly darker than his cousin's dark brown fur. His hair was undone, the whole falling around his ears in a wild tangle as though it had been hastily washed and not combed after, and he had not looked up when the door opened; his eyes were tracking on the dim glow of the fire and not an ear had twitched at the sound of the door.

Ren let his staff and pack fall by the table, approaching the bed with steps that slowed as his cousin still didn't look up. "Ying Xian?" he called, his own voice cracking with the depth of emotion he couldn't name, willing his cousin to look up, to blink and move, animate with the huge depths of sheer _life_ that Ren had always known of him. 

Another step, close enough to reach out and touch. Ren did, his claws sinking hesitantly into the thick scruff of his cousin's beard until he could cradle the other's broad jaw in his hands. "Cousin," he tried again, and then, because it was his cousin's choice once they had left the Turtle behind, "Hardwire? Cousin, it's me, it's Ren. Look at me, please. Hardwire?"

A deeper breath, a blink, then nothing. Ren sank slowly onto the bed, close enough to lean against the other - cub instinct from when they had been cubs, as close as litter mates, and the press of comfort and warmth had been the wordless language of safety and family. "I'm here," he whispered, blinking back tears. Hardwire's shoulders were solid beneath his hands, unresisting as he drew his cousin against him. He pressed Hardwire's face against his neck, burying his own nose against thick brown hair and the softer fur of an ear that had a ragged bit taken out of it, one of the many scars the other had collected over the years. When he breathed in it was nothing but his cousin's scent, familiar and _alive_ , and Ren's breath broke on a sob. "I'm here," he whispered into that ear, holding on tight. "I'm here, cousin, you're not alone."

Dimly, he heard the Grandmaster say something about food, that a tray would be sent over, and then the door was gently shut. By the dim light of the fire Ren tugged and pulled, easing the barely responsive bulk of his cousin into stretching out on the bed. Ren stripped his armor off with fumbling fingers, breathing a sigh of relief as the chestplate came loose, and laid down beside Hardwire. It was better that way, close enough to feel the other's heartbeat and let his own be felt in turn. Ren wrapped his arms around Hardwire, tucking them back together, faces pressed into fur where the only scents were theirs, his quiet litany breathed out on reflex - not alone, he was there, he was _there_. 

Ren couldn't have said how long it was that they stayed there, hours, days, the world shrunk down to the warmth of his cousin's breath against his throat and the scent and feel of family. He thought he heard the door open again but he didn't raise his head to look and after a short pause it closed once more. He picked his claws gently through Hardwire's tangled hair, combing one bit smooth at a time until his fingers could stroke through it freely. The soft, short fur against the other's temples and cheek tasted of salt and it took Ren long moments to realize that it was from his own tears, sliding silently down his muzzle to drip onto the fur beneath his lips. 

Some indefinite time later he felt the body in his arms stir. A hand lifted, claws pricking through the sleeve of his shirt to hook into the fur of his arm. Hardwire took a deeper breath, then another, shifting to inhale the scent trapped in the warmed fur beneath Ren's chin. Ren held him close, barely daring to breathe himself until Hardwire swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet, his voice a cracked ruin with no strength. "...Ren?"

"I'm here," Ren whispered, nuzzling his cousin's cheek. _A firm will_ , the Grandmaster had said, used up achieving the impossible. Ren thought of his cousin's unwavering loyalty, not to Stormwind but to Varian Wrynn, the man and not the king, and wondered with a sick feeling what his cousin had done and how the remnants of Varian had come to be on the temple peak, half a world and more away from where the man had fallen. 

"I'm here," he whispered, pressing soft kisses to his cousin's forehead, his hands clenched almost painfully tight to the fur and hair. "I'm here, Ying Xian. We're safe. It's alright." He repeated the words endlessly until he felt his cousin's grip slip, body relaxing into actual sleep. Only then could Ren breathe out around the ache in his middle and wrap himself around his closest family, real and alive, the tears flowing in earnest in a silent stream.


End file.
